Why the Elephants?

Why the Elephants? 

   Some have inquired about my opening page on elephants.  Why elephants, and why now?  The reality is that few, if any of us, will actually see a live elephant.  We might stare at one in a zoo, or watch a herd of them in 1080 HD (on a side note, the newer televisions have 4 times the pixel rate and sharpness of 1080, lending new meaning to the term HD).  But for some species, primarily the forest elephants of Africa, the outlook is grim...experts predict that they will indeed be gone within a decade.

   As with the killing of rhinos (poaching is up 7,000% in South Africa, mostly in the past 3 years), the animals are being shot or poisoned for their tusks, or in the case of the rhinos, their horns (the rhino horn is made of keratin, the same stuff that makes up our fingernails);  the ivory is used for everything from a belief in its medicinal properties to religious figurines to decorative inlays for guns and musical instruments (piano keys were once made of ivory but now it is primarily used for the inlays of bows for stringed instruments). The Philippines is the largest importer of Christian carvings in ivory and brings them in via Thailand or China.  In many countries, but particularly China (which is the largest importer of illegal ivory), ivory is more profitable to sell than drugs.  The second largest importer of illegal ivory is the United States.

   There have been efforts to stop the trade in illegal ivory, especially the Clinton Foundation which has put together a broad coalition of conservation groups, countries, and above all, African parks, not only to stop the poachers and trade, but also to stop the demand via education.  Several states (New York and New Jersey) have led the drive to ban ivory sales or items that contain ivory altogether (the three largest traffiking states for ivory are New York, California and Hawaii).  Unfortunately, our Congress is looking to void all of these efforts, once again bowing to pressure from various lobbying groups such as the NRA.  As of today, two bills have made it into both the House and Senate to continue to allow the trade of ivory...says one bulletin from the National Resources Defense Council, The problem is there are gaping loopholes in the (current) law that allow for the sale of things like antique ivory or ivory that comes from other sources, like mammoths or walruses.  But testing ivory to determine its age or what species it comes from is expensive, and the testing methods themselves aren't widely available. So what do the traffikers do. They pass off ivory from freshly killed elephants as "legal," which under current regulations isn't hard to do.

   But let's look at the numbers.  For the past 2 years, 10% of the forest elephant population has been killed (their population is now down 60%).  Poachers are killing entire herds, not only the males for their tusks, but the juveniles, females and babies.  Rangers often arrive to discover all of this within the confines of their state parks, parks meant to protect the herds.  Poachers hack into radio collars meant to track the elephants, finding them with helicopters and disappearing before the rangers can arrive. For other elephant species, populations have been cut to less than half what they were only a few decades ago...estimates are that nearly 100 per day are either shot or poisoned.  Elizabeth Kolbert reported in The New Yorker that ground up rhino horn is served in tea or snorted like cocaine at high-end parties...the cost, $25,000 per pound (ivory often fetches less than 1/10 that price). 

   Said Kolbert in her piece:  Meanwhile, as disturbing as the recent carnage is, the long-term view is, if anything, worse.  Elephants and rhinos are among the last survivors of a once rich bestiary of giants. Australia was home to thirteen-foot-long marsupials.  North America had mammoths and mastodons, South America glyptodonts and enormous sloths, Madagascar massive elephant birds and giant lemurs.  Before people arrived on the scene, these megafauna were protected by their size; afterward their size became a liability.  The giant beasts couldn’t reproduce fast enough to make up for the losses to human hunting, and so, one after another, they vanished.  In this sense, what’s happening today in Africa is just the final act of a long-running tragedy.

   Elephants once numbered in the millions (as recent as 1980, the population was still over a million...now, it is less than half of that and declining by about 40,000 annually).  Elephants were so numerous that the Romans had thousands of elephants paraded and killed in the Colosseum. Hannibal made elephants famous in history by crossing the Pyrenees, albeit with only 35 or so elephants. 

   Elephants mourn their dead, often for weeks, and transmit low frequency sounds that still puzzle scientists.  They are quite societal and display not only strong memory skills but strong emotions.  And contrary to popular belief, elephants are more than capable swimmers in deep water...and elephants are dying.  It is time to change things...but how?

   The recent Smithsonian featured a cover story of one poacher turned ranger.  But within the story was the tale of an even larger illegal ivory cartel, its leader caught, imprisoned and two years later, found to have "escaped."  After another few years, he was again caught and once again, found to be "missing."  He is back out there leading a group of well-funded poachers.  The money is huge and corruption is high.  Right from wrong is easy to state; but temptation is strong, especially if it means your family eating for another month or year.  But things ARE changing...slowly.  The Wildlife Conservation among others have started campaigns (you can view one such print campaign here).  A million pledges are needed --just ONE million-- and still they are falling short.

   So back to the start of this article...why the elephants now?  Because as the saying goes, one drop of water can lead to becoming a river and one small step can be the start of a grand journey.  These are massive creatures, the likes of which we (at least MY generation) may never see again.  It is time to start helping to make the change, to make snorting powdered rhino horn a thing of disgust and not something "cool,"  to make a carving of ivory a thing to be shunned,  to encourage parks and park rangers dedicating their lives to protecting elephants a thing of pride and something to be rewarded, not only with tourism dollars but with words and education.  The world CAN stop the antics of a few...if more of us are aware.  It's happening...elephants are heading into extinction, as are rhinos and tigers.  And my hope is that featuring this subject on my opening page it might be one drop that begins to lead to rain, then to a storm, then to a flood, then to an ocean...that's why.